ryanosaur

Audioholic Ninja

Don't forget how much better your car performs on a full tank of gas! That's why Amps make speakers better, afterall! All that power to "fill them up!..." If only we could double our gas capacity the way they say we are supposed to double our speakers' RMS power, our cars would really "bloom" with wider and deeper soundstage and greater clarity.

Same here, Ideally I prefer to have the heat generating amps in their own enclosure and power supply...that said, I almost always refer AVR to others...for me, I've owned one AVR, but for the most part, I've run separates most of my life.

AVUser001

Full Audioholic

Same here, Ideally I prefer to have the heat generating amps in their own enclosure and power supply...that said, I almost always refer AVR to others...for me, I've owned one AVR, but for the most part, I've run separates most of my life.

I am also thinking of moving from my troubled Marantz SR7010 , to a streaming DAC(w/Volume Control) + beefy PowerAmp for my 2 channel system...,again not necessarily for SQ, but for the flexibility in DAC choices decoupled from power amplification(& heat). I'd like to invest & retain the power amp as long as possible, while tech refreshing the upstream(streamer/dac/preamp) as needed.

For now the Marantz 7010 is wonderfully driving my Focal Electras still breaking-in in my office going through room treatment(with help of REW measurements).

Pogre

Audioholic Warlord

An interesting video from one of my favorite 'tubers about the placebo effect.

He just put it out today. It's more about how it works in the medical field, but there are actual physiological changes going on in our bodies and brains when we're being placebo'd. One woman even knew she was taking a placebo and it still worked! To go a step further, after the trial was over and she gave the placebo pills back her symptoms returned...

If your brain can convince your body and nervous system it's no longer in pain or suffering ill effects from a disease, I think that it's not that far a stretch for it to affect how we hear, taste and perceive any other input with the right suggestion or visual queue.

William Lemmerhirt

Audioholic Spartan

An interesting video from one of my favorite 'tubers about the placebo effect.

He just put it out today. It's more about how it works in the medical field, but there are actual physiological changes going on in our bodies and brains when we're being placebo'd. One woman even knew she was taking a placebo and it still worked! To go a step further, after the trial was over and she gave the placebo pills back her symptoms returned...

If your brain can convince your body and nervous system it's no longer in pain or suffering ill effects from a disease, I think that it's not that far a stretch for it to affect how we hear, taste and perceive any other input with the right suggestion or visual queue.

Ya know, this ironic. I tried something similar. I’ve been calling my wife Lagertha for a long time, you know cause Katheryn Winnick. Crazy thing is it worked!!! She totally came after me with a sword!!!
Obviously not what I had in mind. So just remember to be careful with this stuff.

Pogre

Audioholic Warlord

Ya know, this ironic. I tried something similar. I’ve been calling my wife Lagertha for a long time, you know cause Katheryn Winnick. Crazy thing is it worked!!! She totally came after me with a sword!!!
Obviously not what I had in mind. So just remember to be careful with this stuff.

Filmgeek47

Enthusiast

One edge case where separates (and therefore external amps) might make sense is for setups with a ton of speakers. Not a lot of AVRs out there (at least that I’ve seen) that will run 13 or 15 channels of speakers. with separates there’s plenty of options that will do that. So for example, an Atmos 9.1.6 setup would probably best be done with separates, assuming you’ve got the budget and the space.

William Lemmerhirt

Audioholic Spartan

One edge case where separates (and therefore external amps) might make sense is for setups with a ton of speakers. Not a lot of AVRs out there (at least that I’ve seen) that will run 13 or 15 channels of speakers. with separates there’s plenty of options that will do that. So for example, an Atmos 9.1.6 setup would probably best be done with separates, assuming you’ve got the budget and the space.

shkumar4963

Audioholic

I'd like to frame this a little differently for Adrian to perhaps understand it better.
We do have an expectation bias that a more expensive unit dedicated to a specific task would perform better, but as Peng says, it may perform better, but the difference is not likely to be audible!
But as far as the perception that it sounds better, don't look at it as simply the cost so much as that you have been anticipating that new amp. You have invested research in picking it and sacrificed time to earn the money to buy it.
I think food is a reasonable analogy as if you spent the last 2 hours preparing special food (or even sitting in the kitchen watching it being prepared), the anticipation is going to result in heightened attention to the taste of the food and you will enjoy it more than you would if you just walked in the door (not thinking about food)!
Similarly, if we spent the last 1/2 hour driving home thinking about listening to a favorite song on our system, that song will generally sound more profoundly great than it would if it just popped up on a shuffle play.
You can look at it as being more alert to the sound and thus taking in a little more nuance than you otherwise might, or you can think of it as biochemical endorphins/stimulants that your body generates from your anticipation!
In the end, we humans are ill-suited to doing fine comparisons of our sensory inputs. If you consider color, we use paint chips to ID the color we want with a bit of precision, because we know we cannot remember the exact specifics of a color to the level of precision that the paint chips offer. Sound is maybe even less so and there is no "paint chip" for sound!
Yeah, you can hear the difference between very good and poor speakers, but the difference between speakers is humongous when compared to the difference between modern competently designed amps (unless you are overloading one of the amps so it is not performing as designed)!

On the Crown, I would postpone judgement until you have the source of the noise resolved. It certainly has the potential to impact the sound!
Even so you simply cannot trust your ears unless you have removed knowledge of what you are listening to. That is why rigorous research requires double-blind testing!
Just as a fun demonstration of how our eyes can override what our ears hear, here is a 2 minute clip on the McGurk effect:

shkumar4963

Audioholic

Don't forget how much better your car performs on a full tank of gas! That's why Amps make speakers better, afterall! All that power to "fill them up!..." If only we could double our gas capacity the way they say we are supposed to double our speakers' RMS power, our cars would really "bloom" with wider and deeper soundstage and greater clarity.

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi

One edge case where separates (and therefore external amps) might make sense is for setups with a ton of speakers. Not a lot of AVRs out there (at least that I’ve seen) that will run 13 or 15 channels of speakers. with separates there’s plenty of options that will do that. So for example, an Atmos 9.1.6 setup would probably best be done with separates, assuming you’ve got the budget and the space.

panteragstk

Audioholic Ninja

I think look play a huge part in impacting our auditory sense for sure. Every time I vacuum and wipe down everything in my HT room, tidy up everything and eliminated clutters, my system seemed to sound better overall too.